Iron Man Fic: we were almost harry & sally
note: for riot__libertine and her job interview prompt. sort of based this around the idea that pepper worked for the company before stark, like in the comic. i thought it was kind of an interesting idea to apply to the movieverse. i hope you enjoy!
we were almost harry & sally
really, she practices saying, really it’s fine. they play off the big kid’s world like it’s something to talk about, he always tells her. iron man. pepper, obadiah stane, tony. pepper/tony-ish. pre-movieverse. 2324 words, pg.
-
The interview is rather unexpected, progressing from a congratulations that suffered around her sudden need to fix a system glitch.
So it’s a bit of a surprise when she gets called to Mr. Stane’s office, high into the recesses of the top corporate following along with a few of Stark Industries’ scientists here and there. She isn’t nervous, but Pepper does keep herself mildly curious into wondering why, all of sudden, she’s resting comfortably in floor sixty-four instead of the practical thirties where she spends her weeks.
If anything, it’s not that big of a deal. She found the system error that had been plaguing her office for the week, her boss included, and all it took was a little tinkering here and there, restarting the system and presto, things are fixed.
Really, she practices saying, really it’s fine. She likes being a part of the middle, knowing less about too much and too much about the practical things. Vacations are easy. There are even casual Fridays. She doesn’t want any acknowledgments - as a matter of fact, she hates them. So she hopes that she’s misreading this whole interview thing.
She’s alone in the office - Mr. Stane’s own secretary has been eyeing her warily since her arrival, ushering her inside and muttering something about a few minutes late as if it were the end of the world and nothing more. She hasn’t come back to check though. Admittedly, she’s curious about everything. An interview was all the information she received, no thank you or a few extra dollars on the biweekly pay cycle. She hopes, if anything, she’s not going to get a reaming in fixing something she wasn’t supposed to; which is also silly, she reasons, because she’s sure that the people up here do not use the system down there.
The office, however, factors in intimidation with an odd sort of presence, a mix of arrogance and childish glee. She’s met Mr. Stane once, during her initial company orientation, as he passed over her and some other girls, grinning widely with a cigar in hand. She’s still new, if anything, a year or two under the wing of the company and nothing less. She never carries any sort of impression of him other than that and the unease that most people have when discussing anything of the nature that surrounds him. Instead of thinking of him, she looks around and the piles of books that face the wall. Most look untouched. There are the morning papers too, skewed neatly by the bottles of scotch and a few, stray cigars.
She remains uncomfortable for the next stretch of minutes, nearly jumping as the door opens and hits the wall. There’s a chuckle and Mr. Stane is saying things like, “hold my calls” and “only a minute” and now, now she’s worried about what this could really be.
“Thank you, Nancy,” bows the door as it opens.
There is no hello when Mr. Stane sees her, but she stands and watches him move around to drop to the chair behind his desk, reaching for a cigar. She sits when he nods and smoothes her hands over her skirt nervously as she silently wills her hands to keep focus and keep straight.
“So, Miss Potts,” he starts, “it’s crucial, crucial that you understand that you are to be the face between Mr. Stark and the rest of the world. You make the decisions who he sees and who he doesn’t -”
Her eyes widen and suddenly, she feels ridiculous unprepared and uninformed as he talks to her. He’s talking to her like she understands. That agreeing to this meeting - like she had a choice, come on - was her acceptance of something much bigger than her. The door opens again, before she can say anything, and it is Mr. Stark that follows in the wake of Stane’s secretary, causing the poor woman to fluster as she drops a bottle of water in front of her.
“You make that sound ridiculously omnificent,” Mr. Stark seems to add.
Mr. Stane is far from being amused, his mouth parting to sigh as he looks at her finally and then back at Mr. Stark. “Tony,” he says and makes it sound like he’s talking to a child instead of who she knows she’s staring at.
Mr. Stark smirks.
He’s ridiculously handsome, she thinks and then stops herself. She’s not supposed to think he’s ridiculously handsome. Or handsome. Because she’s heard all the stories, all the stories about him and his conquests, and the pools of assistants that he goes through because nobody seems to care quite enough to keep up with the man.
But his gaze drops to hers, not Mr. Stane’s, and he seems to eye her with a mix of amusement and curiosity, nothing further. She almost blushes and is glad that her hair seems to hide the rising color in her cheeks. She shifts quietly in her seat and Mr. Stane clears his throat, watching the two of them.
“Hey,” he offers his hand to her, “Tony Stark. You it?”
“Excuse me?” - confused, she can only wince at how big of an idiot she must sound. Does he know who she is? Does he even really care about a simple, simple system glitch? What is going on?
“My Girl Friday.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I wasn’t exactly hired for you.”
“Shame,” he practically purrs, the smirk still writing itself across his mouth. With no acknowledgment of space, he sits in front of her, on the corner of Mr. Stane’s desk, and effectively blocking the other man from her view.
His eyes are too curious for her liking and his interest, she tells herself yet again, is passing with the stories. Still though, she feels the sudden flush across her cheeks continue to rise but refuses to look away.
“Why haven’t you hired her yet?”
Mr. Stane snorts. “We’ve only just started, Tony.”
“You talk way too slow, Obadiah,” he says and then moves from the desk to the open seat next to her, studying the way she holds herself. It makes her uncomfortable again, her shoulders tensing tightly.
It’s not because she’s here, it’s because she hates spectacles and being settled in the middle of something unprepared. She misses too, the look between the two men, her fingers tapping quietly against the arm of her chair. However brief the silence, it still remains to be odd. She doesn’t this office. She doesn’t like how dark it is. She doesn’t like the tension she’s suddenly picking up, nothing to do with her but nothing to do with why she’s here either.
“Well, come on,” Mr. Stark breaks first, “Let me sit in.”
There’s a cough and she looks up and into the smell of smoke, biting the inside of her mouth as she watches Mr. Stane puff away at his cigar. A new one, she thinks, second or third - really, it’s none of her business, but it’s disgusting nonetheless.
Mr. Stane stretches out, making himself available to the same lazy sort of energy that Mr. Stark carries, as if he wanted to design a comparison without realizing it. It’s Mr. Stark that carries it, she wants to point out. But she refrains herself from making any comments, stupid or otherwise. Thank god, she thinks and praises her self-control.
“As I was saying, Miss Potts, you will be responsible for the flow of information and people, the ins and outs of what and who gets to see Mr. Stark.”
“And girls,” Mr. Stark supplies.
She snorts.
His eyes roll. “Okay, maybe not.”
She finds herself amused and almost disgusted, fronting her hands over her legs as she studies him. She pays no attention to Mr. Stane, except with the occasional straightening of her gaze, and finds herself sharing an odd relaying of amusement with Mr. Stark.
“As I was say -”
But ever the pragmatic girl, she really doesn’t want to sit between the two of them anymore. She leans forward, finally taking the small bottle of water for herself. Her fingers curl over the mouth of the bottle, her tension subsiding for a moment as she decides to drop herself into a sudden display of force.
And really, what does she have to lose - if this is about what she thinks it is about, then why not? The difference is in floors, perhaps vacations, and maybe, just maybe, she might have something more to do than listening to the Sunday gossip of the other girls downstairs.
“I understand, sir,” she says quietly, studying both men. “It isn’t necessary to explain it again. When would you like me to start?”
Mr. Stark smirks widely. “She likes me.”
Pepper pays no attention, training herself on Mr. Stane. He seems to be eyeing her with some concern, brief and open and then shuffled away as she continues to hold his gaze. Nodding, he seems pleased - she doesn’t know, really, he only wears one look from what she’s seen.
But he’s pleased, she tells herself. He sighs. “As soon as possible - you know your way around the system, from what I’ve heard, and I’m sure Tony would be delighted -”
“Thrilled, even -”
“-to fill you in on his expectations, etc,” he finishes.
“Understood.”
And that’s the end of that. She really hasn’t fully addressed the fact that, for the first time, she allowed herself to be somewhat impulsive and regulate a decision around curiosity. But she turns to watch Mr. Stark, cocking her head briefly as Mr. Stane stands and steals a word with him. She watches Mr. Stane drop a firm hand on his shoulder, fingers curled as if he were trying to keep to whatever dominance he can assert. Something passes and Mr. Stark frowns briefly as the other man turns and leaves without anything remotely like a goodbye or a nod.
“So.”
Her lips curl. “Yes.”
“You’re here.”
“I guess.” She wonders if he’s going to ask her - she’s not searching for an acknowledgment, if anything, she’s just curious to see if that’s why he’s here. If that’s why she’s being considered. She doesn’t know what kind of relationship this is going to be.
He seems to be content with watching her - making her fidget, she thinks darkly - and gauging how she reacts to him. She can pick that up. She’s met him once too, at a company party, and their in passing sort of relayed over his cocktail incoherency and a blubbering Merry Christmas. Still, these things happen. And it’s - it’s kind of exciting.
He leans forward, eyeing her lazily. “You’re cute.”
She’s almost charmed into not looking away, into not being disgusted by his lack of regard of her space, and into the way he seems to be focused on her and not on anything else. But he smells much like a bottle and she can see the five o’clock shadow, stemming its way across his cheeks. She ignores the sudden inclination to touch him, dipping her fingers into the arm of her chair. She’s distracted though and finally, she picks up on the wrinkles of his collar, the little press of lipstick against white, and the way he sways tiredly into his seat.
“You smell like scotch,” her nose wrinkles, shaking her head, “and a knock off version of number five - Paris, but not quite Paris.”
His smirk seems to widen. “It was just sex.”
“Of course.”
Her voice is dry, thick, and he looks at her, starting to laugh as he completely and utterly confuses her. She doesn’t know what she’s missed and she doesn’t know if she wants to know anything about it. But he’s laughing and she’s never seen him laugh, the crispness of the sound making a startling change to the lines on his face. It almost gets her then, her throat drying as he seems to be comfortable around her - she doesn’t know to react to this, if it’s just her and her presumptive imagination taking course.
He relaxes then, into the chair, reaching over and stealing one of the pens on Mr. Stane’s desk. He scribbles something across the back of his hand, chuckling once more. She likes the sound, she thinks, she likes how open it seems to make him. But then she remembers she’s talking to him.
“I like you,” he tells her, nodding with approval, “And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Tomorrow. The day after today.”
“Right,” she says slowly, nodding. Tomorrow. New job. New job working for him - everything assumes itself in pieces, amusingly so, because all of this remains to be unexpected and likes it too.
But Mr. Stark - Tony, she tells herself - stands and shoves his hands into his pockets. He looks a like a schoolboy, like the ones that she used to see sneak in through the back of the classroom when late, unapologetic and uncaring. These were the boys that stole all the kisses too - at this, she almost starts laughing at herself, at her romantic inclination and tendencies.
She stands too, gathering her things and checking off the others that she knows she’s going to have to do. Human resources. Billing changes. And yes, yes she’ll need to get used to the idea that she’s working for Tony Stark as well. Because of a stupid computer glitch.
“And Miss Potts?”
The strap of her bag is halfway up her shoulder, “Yes?”
He’s watching her lazily and unassuming, greeting the open door with the palm of his hand as he settles briefly. The grin is slow, different from the others, and he wears something akin to a fascinated delight, watching her eagerly. He nods and she feels herself blush deeply with no idea what’s going on.
“Nice work,” he finishes easily.
Left bewildered, she watches him go and only then, long after he’s gone, she starts to grin.
we were almost harry & sally
really, she practices saying, really it’s fine. they play off the big kid’s world like it’s something to talk about, he always tells her. iron man. pepper, obadiah stane, tony. pepper/tony-ish. pre-movieverse. 2324 words, pg.
-
The interview is rather unexpected, progressing from a congratulations that suffered around her sudden need to fix a system glitch.
So it’s a bit of a surprise when she gets called to Mr. Stane’s office, high into the recesses of the top corporate following along with a few of Stark Industries’ scientists here and there. She isn’t nervous, but Pepper does keep herself mildly curious into wondering why, all of sudden, she’s resting comfortably in floor sixty-four instead of the practical thirties where she spends her weeks.
If anything, it’s not that big of a deal. She found the system error that had been plaguing her office for the week, her boss included, and all it took was a little tinkering here and there, restarting the system and presto, things are fixed.
Really, she practices saying, really it’s fine. She likes being a part of the middle, knowing less about too much and too much about the practical things. Vacations are easy. There are even casual Fridays. She doesn’t want any acknowledgments - as a matter of fact, she hates them. So she hopes that she’s misreading this whole interview thing.
She’s alone in the office - Mr. Stane’s own secretary has been eyeing her warily since her arrival, ushering her inside and muttering something about a few minutes late as if it were the end of the world and nothing more. She hasn’t come back to check though. Admittedly, she’s curious about everything. An interview was all the information she received, no thank you or a few extra dollars on the biweekly pay cycle. She hopes, if anything, she’s not going to get a reaming in fixing something she wasn’t supposed to; which is also silly, she reasons, because she’s sure that the people up here do not use the system down there.
The office, however, factors in intimidation with an odd sort of presence, a mix of arrogance and childish glee. She’s met Mr. Stane once, during her initial company orientation, as he passed over her and some other girls, grinning widely with a cigar in hand. She’s still new, if anything, a year or two under the wing of the company and nothing less. She never carries any sort of impression of him other than that and the unease that most people have when discussing anything of the nature that surrounds him. Instead of thinking of him, she looks around and the piles of books that face the wall. Most look untouched. There are the morning papers too, skewed neatly by the bottles of scotch and a few, stray cigars.
She remains uncomfortable for the next stretch of minutes, nearly jumping as the door opens and hits the wall. There’s a chuckle and Mr. Stane is saying things like, “hold my calls” and “only a minute” and now, now she’s worried about what this could really be.
“Thank you, Nancy,” bows the door as it opens.
There is no hello when Mr. Stane sees her, but she stands and watches him move around to drop to the chair behind his desk, reaching for a cigar. She sits when he nods and smoothes her hands over her skirt nervously as she silently wills her hands to keep focus and keep straight.
“So, Miss Potts,” he starts, “it’s crucial, crucial that you understand that you are to be the face between Mr. Stark and the rest of the world. You make the decisions who he sees and who he doesn’t -”
Her eyes widen and suddenly, she feels ridiculous unprepared and uninformed as he talks to her. He’s talking to her like she understands. That agreeing to this meeting - like she had a choice, come on - was her acceptance of something much bigger than her. The door opens again, before she can say anything, and it is Mr. Stark that follows in the wake of Stane’s secretary, causing the poor woman to fluster as she drops a bottle of water in front of her.
“You make that sound ridiculously omnificent,” Mr. Stark seems to add.
Mr. Stane is far from being amused, his mouth parting to sigh as he looks at her finally and then back at Mr. Stark. “Tony,” he says and makes it sound like he’s talking to a child instead of who she knows she’s staring at.
Mr. Stark smirks.
He’s ridiculously handsome, she thinks and then stops herself. She’s not supposed to think he’s ridiculously handsome. Or handsome. Because she’s heard all the stories, all the stories about him and his conquests, and the pools of assistants that he goes through because nobody seems to care quite enough to keep up with the man.
But his gaze drops to hers, not Mr. Stane’s, and he seems to eye her with a mix of amusement and curiosity, nothing further. She almost blushes and is glad that her hair seems to hide the rising color in her cheeks. She shifts quietly in her seat and Mr. Stane clears his throat, watching the two of them.
“Hey,” he offers his hand to her, “Tony Stark. You it?”
“Excuse me?” - confused, she can only wince at how big of an idiot she must sound. Does he know who she is? Does he even really care about a simple, simple system glitch? What is going on?
“My Girl Friday.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I wasn’t exactly hired for you.”
“Shame,” he practically purrs, the smirk still writing itself across his mouth. With no acknowledgment of space, he sits in front of her, on the corner of Mr. Stane’s desk, and effectively blocking the other man from her view.
His eyes are too curious for her liking and his interest, she tells herself yet again, is passing with the stories. Still though, she feels the sudden flush across her cheeks continue to rise but refuses to look away.
“Why haven’t you hired her yet?”
Mr. Stane snorts. “We’ve only just started, Tony.”
“You talk way too slow, Obadiah,” he says and then moves from the desk to the open seat next to her, studying the way she holds herself. It makes her uncomfortable again, her shoulders tensing tightly.
It’s not because she’s here, it’s because she hates spectacles and being settled in the middle of something unprepared. She misses too, the look between the two men, her fingers tapping quietly against the arm of her chair. However brief the silence, it still remains to be odd. She doesn’t this office. She doesn’t like how dark it is. She doesn’t like the tension she’s suddenly picking up, nothing to do with her but nothing to do with why she’s here either.
“Well, come on,” Mr. Stark breaks first, “Let me sit in.”
There’s a cough and she looks up and into the smell of smoke, biting the inside of her mouth as she watches Mr. Stane puff away at his cigar. A new one, she thinks, second or third - really, it’s none of her business, but it’s disgusting nonetheless.
Mr. Stane stretches out, making himself available to the same lazy sort of energy that Mr. Stark carries, as if he wanted to design a comparison without realizing it. It’s Mr. Stark that carries it, she wants to point out. But she refrains herself from making any comments, stupid or otherwise. Thank god, she thinks and praises her self-control.
“As I was saying, Miss Potts, you will be responsible for the flow of information and people, the ins and outs of what and who gets to see Mr. Stark.”
“And girls,” Mr. Stark supplies.
She snorts.
His eyes roll. “Okay, maybe not.”
She finds herself amused and almost disgusted, fronting her hands over her legs as she studies him. She pays no attention to Mr. Stane, except with the occasional straightening of her gaze, and finds herself sharing an odd relaying of amusement with Mr. Stark.
“As I was say -”
But ever the pragmatic girl, she really doesn’t want to sit between the two of them anymore. She leans forward, finally taking the small bottle of water for herself. Her fingers curl over the mouth of the bottle, her tension subsiding for a moment as she decides to drop herself into a sudden display of force.
And really, what does she have to lose - if this is about what she thinks it is about, then why not? The difference is in floors, perhaps vacations, and maybe, just maybe, she might have something more to do than listening to the Sunday gossip of the other girls downstairs.
“I understand, sir,” she says quietly, studying both men. “It isn’t necessary to explain it again. When would you like me to start?”
Mr. Stark smirks widely. “She likes me.”
Pepper pays no attention, training herself on Mr. Stane. He seems to be eyeing her with some concern, brief and open and then shuffled away as she continues to hold his gaze. Nodding, he seems pleased - she doesn’t know, really, he only wears one look from what she’s seen.
But he’s pleased, she tells herself. He sighs. “As soon as possible - you know your way around the system, from what I’ve heard, and I’m sure Tony would be delighted -”
“Thrilled, even -”
“-to fill you in on his expectations, etc,” he finishes.
“Understood.”
And that’s the end of that. She really hasn’t fully addressed the fact that, for the first time, she allowed herself to be somewhat impulsive and regulate a decision around curiosity. But she turns to watch Mr. Stark, cocking her head briefly as Mr. Stane stands and steals a word with him. She watches Mr. Stane drop a firm hand on his shoulder, fingers curled as if he were trying to keep to whatever dominance he can assert. Something passes and Mr. Stark frowns briefly as the other man turns and leaves without anything remotely like a goodbye or a nod.
“So.”
Her lips curl. “Yes.”
“You’re here.”
“I guess.” She wonders if he’s going to ask her - she’s not searching for an acknowledgment, if anything, she’s just curious to see if that’s why he’s here. If that’s why she’s being considered. She doesn’t know what kind of relationship this is going to be.
He seems to be content with watching her - making her fidget, she thinks darkly - and gauging how she reacts to him. She can pick that up. She’s met him once too, at a company party, and their in passing sort of relayed over his cocktail incoherency and a blubbering Merry Christmas. Still, these things happen. And it’s - it’s kind of exciting.
He leans forward, eyeing her lazily. “You’re cute.”
She’s almost charmed into not looking away, into not being disgusted by his lack of regard of her space, and into the way he seems to be focused on her and not on anything else. But he smells much like a bottle and she can see the five o’clock shadow, stemming its way across his cheeks. She ignores the sudden inclination to touch him, dipping her fingers into the arm of her chair. She’s distracted though and finally, she picks up on the wrinkles of his collar, the little press of lipstick against white, and the way he sways tiredly into his seat.
“You smell like scotch,” her nose wrinkles, shaking her head, “and a knock off version of number five - Paris, but not quite Paris.”
His smirk seems to widen. “It was just sex.”
“Of course.”
Her voice is dry, thick, and he looks at her, starting to laugh as he completely and utterly confuses her. She doesn’t know what she’s missed and she doesn’t know if she wants to know anything about it. But he’s laughing and she’s never seen him laugh, the crispness of the sound making a startling change to the lines on his face. It almost gets her then, her throat drying as he seems to be comfortable around her - she doesn’t know to react to this, if it’s just her and her presumptive imagination taking course.
He relaxes then, into the chair, reaching over and stealing one of the pens on Mr. Stane’s desk. He scribbles something across the back of his hand, chuckling once more. She likes the sound, she thinks, she likes how open it seems to make him. But then she remembers she’s talking to him.
“I like you,” he tells her, nodding with approval, “And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Tomorrow. The day after today.”
“Right,” she says slowly, nodding. Tomorrow. New job. New job working for him - everything assumes itself in pieces, amusingly so, because all of this remains to be unexpected and likes it too.
But Mr. Stark - Tony, she tells herself - stands and shoves his hands into his pockets. He looks a like a schoolboy, like the ones that she used to see sneak in through the back of the classroom when late, unapologetic and uncaring. These were the boys that stole all the kisses too - at this, she almost starts laughing at herself, at her romantic inclination and tendencies.
She stands too, gathering her things and checking off the others that she knows she’s going to have to do. Human resources. Billing changes. And yes, yes she’ll need to get used to the idea that she’s working for Tony Stark as well. Because of a stupid computer glitch.
“And Miss Potts?”
The strap of her bag is halfway up her shoulder, “Yes?”
He’s watching her lazily and unassuming, greeting the open door with the palm of his hand as he settles briefly. The grin is slow, different from the others, and he wears something akin to a fascinated delight, watching her eagerly. He nods and she feels herself blush deeply with no idea what’s going on.
“Nice work,” he finishes easily.
Left bewildered, she watches him go and only then, long after he’s gone, she starts to grin.